Holy shit. I love dark chocolate, but 90% is way too much for me. Strongest I've ever tried was 85%, and THAT was too much. I think about 73% is the strongest I've enjoyed.
In any case, back to the more important topic: What are the acceptable criteria, if any, for discrimination between different forms of life?
If it's tasty, Luke wants to eat it.
I bet in thirty or forty years my grand kids will be asking me "Did YOU eat meat too, back in the old days?" Like old school racism and sexism, eating meat will be one of those things where once everyone was on the wrong side of the progressive line, and still will be in third world countries. But that is a place I'm happy to be at the moment.
I bet in thirty or forty years we'll be eating meat grown in vats. The children will be amazed that we went to all the trouble to kill and eat animals in the first place, when lab-grown steak tastes just fine. "It was a different time, you understand..." We'll say.
What are the acceptable criteria, if any, for discrimination between different forms of life?
For me, it comes down to two things: Suffering, and necessity.
Animals (usually) suffer in being farmed for their milk or eggs, and certainly suffer in being killed for their meat. Even a relatively "humane" slaughter still inflicts suffering in that its the loss of the animal's life, which is certainly against the animal's interests. As a modern American, I'm in a position where I don't have to eat animal products to live a healthy, happy life. If you change either of those conditions -- either the suffering inflicted on the animals, or the necessity of my consuming them or their products, I would have no issues. Eggs from a chicken that chills in my backyard? Okay. Stranded on a desert island? I'm killing and eating shit. But in the current circumstances, I'm doing the things that sit best with my conscience.
To address the "different forms of life" aspect, I don't have any reason to believe that plants can suffer, so they're fine. Very "low" animals, like mussels or clams, or insects, I don't know -- I'd be more willing to eat them than a fish or a cow, but I still don't, just to stay on the safe side of the line. Also, at this point, I really have no interest.
Let me preface my comments by saying that I eat meat, though I limit my intake of cow products and pork products for environmental, ethical, and health reasons. Some meat eaters that I have met take offense to any negative information about the treatment of animals, safety and standards of meat processing, and environmental impacts of farming, processing and distributing meat. They label the dissemination of this information as proselytizing and not simply informing. Now, I have met some pushy, pretentious vegetarians and vegans, but I also know many entrenched meat eaters that purposefully turn blind eyes to genuine concerns and view their status as meat eaters as being more valid. Both situations are just silly. Knowledgeable consumers are great and people sharing information or encouraging people to research what they consume without being holier-than-though about it is also fantastic.
I've made the argument before, and I'll make it again: something has to die in order for you to persist. It's very simple. You don't think plants feel pain? Remember that pain is just a biochemical signal produced in response to injury; it alerts the organism that there is damage to their structure, and encourages them to escape the dangerous situation. It's not special or magical in any capacity.
Plants have the capacity to respond to injury and external threats. Ethylene often functions as a chemical messenger, alerting nearby plants of an external threat. It fulfills the exact same function that "pain" fulfills in mammals; it just looks different to an external observer.
The cruelty argument does have merit, though. Just remember that most food production isn't necessarily "cruel;" it's a byproduct of large-scale production. There are plenty of instances of genuine cruelty towards animals, but they are not the typical occurrence.
As for the safety argument, I don't know where you all are getting your information, and I need to find the studies that I'm thinking of, but the largest vehicle for foodborne disease is fresh produce. It's also almost impossible to completely sanitize your produce. Cooking is the only way to be sure.
I've made the argument before, and I'll make it again: something has to die in order for you to persist. It's very simple. You don't think plants feel pain? Remember that pain is just a biochemical signal produced in response to injury; it alerts the organism that there is damage to their structure, and encourages them to escape the dangerous situation. It's not special or magical in any capacity.
Plants have the capacity to respond to injury and external threats. Ethylene often functions as a chemical messenger, alerting nearby plants of an external threat. It fulfills the exact same function that "pain" fulfills in mammals; it just looks different to an external observer.
Wow, Pete, I am not even a biologist and even I understand that the function of brains and nerves are vastly different from plant structures. I am sorry, but without a lot more direct comparison, it seems that your argument regarding equating "plant pain" with "animal pain" glosses over a lot and seems rather silly.
Let me preface my comments by saying that I eat meat, though I limit my intake of cow products and pork products for environmental, ethical, and health reasons. Some meat eaters that I have met take offense to any negative information about the treatment of animals, safety and standards of meat processing, and environmental impacts of farming, processing and distributing meat. They label the dissemination of this information as proselytizing and not simply informing. Now, I have met some pushy, pretentious vegetarians and vegans, but I also know many entrenched meat eaters that purposefully turn blind eyes to genuine concerns and view their status as meat eaters as being more valid. Both situations are just silly. Knowledgeable consumers are great and people sharing information or encouraging people to research what they consume without being holier-than-though about it is also fantastic.
I totally agree. Why do carnivores get so defensive? If you are going to eat meat, at least understand what it entails. It's this willful ignorance that helps the abuses of industrial agriculture perpetuate.
This is all solved if we could grow functional meat animals without responsive brains.
Only if eliminating cruelty is the only goal. The environmental impact of farming (of meat and vegetation) is vast and many make solid arguments that raising meat is much less efficient and more damaging to the environment.
We're already getting there with chickens. With the right selective pressures a good breeder could probably increase the body mass and reduce the brain size even further.
I've made the argument before, and I'll make it again: something has to die in order for you to persist. It's very simple. You don't think plants feel pain? Remember that pain is just a biochemical signal produced in response to injury; it alerts the organism that there is damage to their structure, and encourages them to escape the dangerous situation. It's not special or magical in any capacity.
Pain and suffering are two different things in my opinion. Suffering implies a state of mind, a terror that only a complex neural center can produce. A bacteria can react to negative stimuli, and we could call that "pain." The problem is, the higher the life form, the more they suffer from their pain. Look at humans. It has been posited that the reason torture works is not because of the pain it causes but from the deep seated fear of permanent injury and death. It has been scientifically proven that pigs suffer depression in the same manner that humans do. Tell me, when you look at a dog, do you not see that they "think" and "react" in a manner far more similar to humans, when compared to bacteria? The difference between plants and higher mammals in terms of pain is that the mammals have the higher brain function to fear pain/get sad because of pain/etc? If we are to have empathy for our fellow humans because we recognize our ourselves in them, why should we deny this to animals which are ostensibly very close to us. I can't prove you yourself think and suffer and feel pain the way I do, but I make an informed guess based on our similar biological structure that our suffering due to pain is very similar. Looking at the physical makeup of dogs, and judging from their behavior, we can extrapolate in what ways they are similar. A dog seems to remember abuse, and dog seems to fears abuse. A bacterium or plant does not have the necessary brain to suffer and remember pain in the same way that higher life forms do.
Your argument is not practical. It is one of those "zoomed all the way out" arguments. Those always end in Solipsism talking.
The cruelty argument does have merit, though. Just remember that most food production isn't necessarily "cruel;" it's a byproduct of large-scale production. There are plenty of instances of genuine cruelty towards animals, but they are not the typical occurrence.
So cruelty isn't cruelty if it is institutionalized? I'm just saying that if people did to pet dogs what we do to those pigs, they would be thrown in jail.
The environmental impact of farming (of meat and vegetation) is vast and many make solid arguments that raising meat is much less efficient and more damaging to the environment.
But at the same time, much vegetarian and vegan food requires substantial time and energy-intensive processing, and can lack several crucial nutrients. An omnivorous diet is overwhelmingly supported as the most healthy and viable.
The real goal is to take energy from the sun and convert it into nutrients that we can then ingest to get our own energy. Plants perform the first step, but the world population is such that alternative sources of energy (oil, etc...) are required in quantity to produce enough nutrients for and from these plants. Meat animals act as machines that convert this plant energy (from the sun originally) into more useful energy, and currently they do it more efficiently than we can do in a lab or factory. Plants and animals together are the best cycle we have, but both have substantial environmental impact and require extra non-sun energy.
The real problem, right now, is that our entire food cycle is too reliant on non-renewable sources of input energy. Coupled with this is the massive overconsumption of meat in much of the world.
If we reached a point where we could use sun energy directly to manufacture nutrients in quantity, we could make the "meat" and "vegetables" we needed in such a manner that we would no longer require all of this non-renewable input energy that currently sustains us.
In the long-term, a better solution is to alter ourselves such that we can process energy from the sun directly, e.g., electrically-powered cybernetic bodies.
Only if eliminating cruelty is the only goal. The environmental impact of farming (of meat and vegetation) is vast and many make solid arguments that raising meat is much less efficient and more damaging to the environment.
I think Rym was getting at test-tube meat, which could quite possibly solve environmental impacts as well as the ethical concerns. A big hurdle for scientists will be making it taste the same as or better than "real" meat. If they can't do this, it will never take off. See also: Popular Science's hypothetical vertical farm (image #7 is most relevant).
I would just note that we do use beagles in medical testing.
There is a vast difference between medical testing on animals and eating animals. When the biology of an animal is necessary for a function that betters or maintains human life (such as experimentation), then -in my eyes at least- human life trumps animal life. However, animals are no longer many societies only option for meeting their nutritional needs for proteins and fats. If you want to discuss animal testing, that is great, but don't confuse the issue with consumption of meat.
In the long-term, a better solution is to alter ourselves such that we can process energy from the sun directly, e.g., electrically-powered cybernetic bodies.
Or gentic engineering for photosynthesis in humans. ^_~
Or gentic engineering for photosynthesis in humans. ^_~
Actually, yes. I don't believe there is an actual distinction between an organism and a machine. A genetically-engineered human is no different from a cybernetically enhanced human: they're just two routes to the same destination. They're not even mutually exclusive.
Of course, we'd need batteries in our butts for nights and Finland.
Pete is correct. Pain/cruelty from an empirical viewpoint are no more than electro/chemical reactions. What makes one configuration of matter and energy bad and another different configuration of matter and energy good? The only difference between plant "pain" and animal "pain" is that we are animals, and thus our brains and bodies are wired to empathize with animal pain. We view animal pain as bad only because we empathize with it and it causes bad feelings in us.
If you were a plant, with no eyes or ears, you could not empathize with the pain of animals because the signals of that pain and suffering would be invisible to you. You could not hear crying or whimpering, or see sad body language. However, you might have the sensory organs that react to chemicals released by other plants, and you would thus easily detect and empathize with their suffering.
We can modify a human being to disconnect the part of the brain that empathizes with the pain and suffering of animals, and there would be no sense of it being bad or wrong. Likewise, it is theoretically possible to implant an organ into a person that reacts to chemicals released by plants. If you wire that organ up to the empathy center, that person will very much feel the pain of plants, and decide that eating plants is wrong, or at least be very sad when eating plants.
We can modify a human being to disconnect the part of the brain that empathizes with the pain and suffering of animals, and there would be no sense of it being bad or wrong. Likewise, it is theoretically possible to implant an organ into a person that reacts to chemicals released by plants. If you wire that organ up to the empathy center, that person will very much feel the pain of plants, and decide that eating plants is wrong, or at least be very sad when eating plants.
So that said, should we not engineer meat animals that are incapable of experiencing pain or discomfort?
Neuropath gives us a scarier R Scott Bakker option. Hidden for the squeamish: Engineer them to experience both pain and pleasure as pleasure alone, and slaughter as ecstasy, such that they await their final days with anticipation and desire.
Pete is correct. Pain/cruelty from an empirical viewpoint are no more than electro/chemical reactions. What makes one configuration of matter and energy bad and another different configuration of matter and energy good? The only difference between plant "pain" and animal "pain" is that we are animals, and thus our brains and bodies are wired to empathize with animal pain. We view animal pain as bad only because we empathize with it and it causes bad feelings in us.
So? Okay, so we do. That's like saying "because we are people, we empathize with other people." We could choose to engineer ourselves to not empathize and then we get a bunch of sociopathic serial killers.
I suppose it is all were we draw the line. I will fully admit that I, in my human-mammal state, empathize more with my close cousins the animals than I do with the plants. Empathy is a human and ape quality, and I empathize with animals because they are quite like me, and thus I can relate to their suffering. But is that an incorrect reaction? I feel that it is closely related with the set of mental processes that makes me not want people to be killed in wars, or makes me sad when I see a picture of a starving child. The empathy may not be to the same degree when I look at other species, but when I see a dog in pain, I feel a similar pang.
Wow, Pete, I am not even a biologist and even I understand that the function of brains and nerves are vastly different from plant structures. I am sorry, but without a lot more direct comparison, it seems that your argument regarding equating "plant pain" with "animal pain" glosses over a lot and seems rather silly.
Are they really that different?
Yes, I know that the specific chemical reactions that produce pain responses in mammals are vastly different than the chemical pathways in plants. I know better than pretty much anyone else on these forums, actually.
I'm not arguing that they are exactly identical. I'm arguing that they are functionally equivalent. Do you understand the difference there?
I already explained the biological function of pain receptors in mammals. It is completely accurate. Do you disagree with my assessment? If so, why? Pain is a series of biochemical signals produced in response to damage or a perceived external threat. Mammalian pain isn't particularly special or meaningful; it's just a response like any other.
Plants have many sophisticated systems that function as injury and threat response mechanisms. Certain trees will produce ethylene when they are under attack by pests; nearby trees of that same species will detect the ethylene and begin producing defensive compounds in response to the threat.
I'm not arguing that they use the same chemical pathways to produce responses - far from it, actually. Pain is a series of reactions that occur in response to a threat or injury. Plants have systems that detect injuries and threats and produce responses. It fulfills the same purpose, though it accomplishes it through slightly different means. They are functionally equivalent. Plants feel "pain," but not the same pain that I feel or a cow feels.
The problem is, the higher the life form, the more they suffer from their pain.
There are no "higher" forms of life.
The only reason that we perceive "suffering" is that we have a complex system of responses to "pain." Pain is a necessary component of suffering, isn't it? Even if you're emotionally suffering, you still need to feel emotional pain. Suffering is our perception of the external displays of pain in organisms.
Tell me, when you look at a dog, do you not see that they "think" and "react" in a manner far more similar to humans, when compared to bacteria?
When compared to bacteria? Maybe. When compared to a human, certainly not. I will, however, point out that bacteria have very sophisticated detection and response mechanisms, especially given their relative simplicity. Apples and oranges. They do different things.
A bacterium or plant does not have the necessary brain to suffer and remember pain in the same way that higher life forms do.
Again, apples and oranges. Yes, the specific mechanisms vary. My point is that the specific mechanisms are unimportant when compared to the function being performed. Bacterial populations evolve antibiotic resistance. Individual cells detect threats and produce responses to those threats. There are many bacteria who exhibit resistance to the beta-lactam classes of antibiotics - those are the penicillins, FYI. They do so by producing beta-lactamase, an enzyme that cleaves the functional ring in the beta-lactam molecule. The bacteria detect the presence of the beta-lactam ring and produce beta-lactamase in response, destroying the antibiotic and leaving their cell walls intact. That's amazing if you stop to think about it. The genome of L. monocytogenes is about 2.9 megabases long, and yet that contains sufficient information to program a complex invasive pathogenesis. Bacteria are incredibly sophisticated. Dogs step in their own piss.
and judging from their behavior, we can extrapolate in what ways they are similar.
And that works to an extent, but it doesn't work perfectly. It's a rough approximation, and we do it because we naturally attempt to understand things in relation to ourselves. How else are we supposed to do it? An extrapolation can still lead to lots of erroneous information, and many people have paid dearly because they incorrectly extrapolated information about animal behavior. You can only figure out so much, and much of what you do perceive is simply filled into human terms because it's the closest equivalent.
Your argument is not practical.
It's completely practical. In fact, my argument is fully rooted in practicality. My whole point in all of this is that we need to consider how it is we define "cruelty" with regard to animals. Animal husbandry can be very efficient, but in order to do so, we have to do things that may appear cruel. It's wonderful to think that we could put all the cows on earth on big green pastures and let them be happy forever, but that will not produce enough food for our needs. Industrialized farming is necessary in order to properly support a large population. As much as I want to support the local farmer, and I do support them often, I recognize that it is infeasible to feed 300 million people on local produce only. The farming is too inefficient and taxes too much land.
Penning animals is not cruel in and of itself. Clipping and banding wings is not cruel in and of itself. Slaughterhouses are not cruel. They do ugly jobs, and that might appear cruel, but it's not. Again, my argument goes down to the very core of what we consider to be "cruel" animal treatment. The extreme cases you see presented in video are the exception, not the norm.
Comments
Vegeta! What does the scouter say about its chocolate level?
IT'S OVER 9000!
(Note: measurements in parts per 10,000).
What are the acceptable criteria, if any, for discrimination between different forms of life?
I bet in thirty or forty years my grand kids will be asking me "Did YOU eat meat too, back in the old days?" Like old school racism and sexism, eating meat will be one of those things where once everyone was on the wrong side of the progressive line, and still will be in third world countries. But that is a place I'm happy to be at the moment.
Animals (usually) suffer in being farmed for their milk or eggs, and certainly suffer in being killed for their meat. Even a relatively "humane" slaughter still inflicts suffering in that its the loss of the animal's life, which is certainly against the animal's interests. As a modern American, I'm in a position where I don't have to eat animal products to live a healthy, happy life. If you change either of those conditions -- either the suffering inflicted on the animals, or the necessity of my consuming them or their products, I would have no issues. Eggs from a chicken that chills in my backyard? Okay. Stranded on a desert island? I'm killing and eating shit. But in the current circumstances, I'm doing the things that sit best with my conscience.
To address the "different forms of life" aspect, I don't have any reason to believe that plants can suffer, so they're fine. Very "low" animals, like mussels or clams, or insects, I don't know -- I'd be more willing to eat them than a fish or a cow, but I still don't, just to stay on the safe side of the line. Also, at this point, I really have no interest.
On the other hand, suffering is definitely a sensible criterion. However, must we then judge all animals with the capacity for suffering equally?
Besides that, how do we know if one way of living is better or worse for an animal than another?
Some meat eaters that I have met take offense to any negative information about the treatment of animals, safety and standards of meat processing, and environmental impacts of farming, processing and distributing meat. They label the dissemination of this information as proselytizing and not simply informing. Now, I have met some pushy, pretentious vegetarians and vegans, but I also know many entrenched meat eaters that purposefully turn blind eyes to genuine concerns and view their status as meat eaters as being more valid. Both situations are just silly. Knowledgeable consumers are great and people sharing information or encouraging people to research what they consume without being holier-than-though about it is also fantastic.
Plants have the capacity to respond to injury and external threats. Ethylene often functions as a chemical messenger, alerting nearby plants of an external threat. It fulfills the exact same function that "pain" fulfills in mammals; it just looks different to an external observer.
The cruelty argument does have merit, though. Just remember that most food production isn't necessarily "cruel;" it's a byproduct of large-scale production. There are plenty of instances of genuine cruelty towards animals, but they are not the typical occurrence.
As for the safety argument, I don't know where you all are getting your information, and I need to find the studies that I'm thinking of, but the largest vehicle for foodborne disease is fresh produce. It's also almost impossible to completely sanitize your produce. Cooking is the only way to be sure.
Your argument is not practical. It is one of those "zoomed all the way out" arguments. Those always end in Solipsism talking. So cruelty isn't cruelty if it is institutionalized? I'm just saying that if people did to pet dogs what we do to those pigs, they would be thrown in jail.
The real goal is to take energy from the sun and convert it into nutrients that we can then ingest to get our own energy. Plants perform the first step, but the world population is such that alternative sources of energy (oil, etc...) are required in quantity to produce enough nutrients for and from these plants. Meat animals act as machines that convert this plant energy (from the sun originally) into more useful energy, and currently they do it more efficiently than we can do in a lab or factory. Plants and animals together are the best cycle we have, but both have substantial environmental impact and require extra non-sun energy.
The real problem, right now, is that our entire food cycle is too reliant on non-renewable sources of input energy. Coupled with this is the massive overconsumption of meat in much of the world.
If we reached a point where we could use sun energy directly to manufacture nutrients in quantity, we could make the "meat" and "vegetables" we needed in such a manner that we would no longer require all of this non-renewable input energy that currently sustains us.
In the long-term, a better solution is to alter ourselves such that we can process energy from the sun directly, e.g., electrically-powered cybernetic bodies.
Edit: Rym ninja'd me by 23 seconds.
But seriously? Those pig-farmers put Michael Vic to shame.
Of course, we'd need batteries in our butts for nights and Finland.
If you were a plant, with no eyes or ears, you could not empathize with the pain of animals because the signals of that pain and suffering would be invisible to you. You could not hear crying or whimpering, or see sad body language. However, you might have the sensory organs that react to chemicals released by other plants, and you would thus easily detect and empathize with their suffering.
We can modify a human being to disconnect the part of the brain that empathizes with the pain and suffering of animals, and there would be no sense of it being bad or wrong. Likewise, it is theoretically possible to implant an organ into a person that reacts to chemicals released by plants. If you wire that organ up to the empathy center, that person will very much feel the pain of plants, and decide that eating plants is wrong, or at least be very sad when eating plants.
Neuropath gives us a scarier R Scott Bakker option. Hidden for the squeamish: Engineer them to experience both pain and pleasure as pleasure alone, and slaughter as ecstasy, such that they await their final days with anticipation and desire.
I suppose it is all were we draw the line. I will fully admit that I, in my human-mammal state, empathize more with my close cousins the animals than I do with the plants. Empathy is a human and ape quality, and I empathize with animals because they are quite like me, and thus I can relate to their suffering. But is that an incorrect reaction? I feel that it is closely related with the set of mental processes that makes me not want people to be killed in wars, or makes me sad when I see a picture of a starving child. The empathy may not be to the same degree when I look at other species, but when I see a dog in pain, I feel a similar pang.
Yes, I know that the specific chemical reactions that produce pain responses in mammals are vastly different than the chemical pathways in plants. I know better than pretty much anyone else on these forums, actually.
I'm not arguing that they are exactly identical. I'm arguing that they are functionally equivalent. Do you understand the difference there?
I already explained the biological function of pain receptors in mammals. It is completely accurate. Do you disagree with my assessment? If so, why? Pain is a series of biochemical signals produced in response to damage or a perceived external threat. Mammalian pain isn't particularly special or meaningful; it's just a response like any other.
Plants have many sophisticated systems that function as injury and threat response mechanisms. Certain trees will produce ethylene when they are under attack by pests; nearby trees of that same species will detect the ethylene and begin producing defensive compounds in response to the threat.
I'm not arguing that they use the same chemical pathways to produce responses - far from it, actually. Pain is a series of reactions that occur in response to a threat or injury. Plants have systems that detect injuries and threats and produce responses. It fulfills the same purpose, though it accomplishes it through slightly different means. They are functionally equivalent. Plants feel "pain," but not the same pain that I feel or a cow feels. There are no "higher" forms of life.
The only reason that we perceive "suffering" is that we have a complex system of responses to "pain." Pain is a necessary component of suffering, isn't it? Even if you're emotionally suffering, you still need to feel emotional pain. Suffering is our perception of the external displays of pain in organisms. When compared to bacteria? Maybe. When compared to a human, certainly not. I will, however, point out that bacteria have very sophisticated detection and response mechanisms, especially given their relative simplicity. Apples and oranges. They do different things. Again, apples and oranges. Yes, the specific mechanisms vary. My point is that the specific mechanisms are unimportant when compared to the function being performed. Bacterial populations evolve antibiotic resistance. Individual cells detect threats and produce responses to those threats. There are many bacteria who exhibit resistance to the beta-lactam classes of antibiotics - those are the penicillins, FYI. They do so by producing beta-lactamase, an enzyme that cleaves the functional ring in the beta-lactam molecule. The bacteria detect the presence of the beta-lactam ring and produce beta-lactamase in response, destroying the antibiotic and leaving their cell walls intact. That's amazing if you stop to think about it. The genome of L. monocytogenes is about 2.9 megabases long, and yet that contains sufficient information to program a complex invasive pathogenesis. Bacteria are incredibly sophisticated. Dogs step in their own piss. And that works to an extent, but it doesn't work perfectly. It's a rough approximation, and we do it because we naturally attempt to understand things in relation to ourselves. How else are we supposed to do it? An extrapolation can still lead to lots of erroneous information, and many people have paid dearly because they incorrectly extrapolated information about animal behavior. You can only figure out so much, and much of what you do perceive is simply filled into human terms because it's the closest equivalent. It's completely practical. In fact, my argument is fully rooted in practicality. My whole point in all of this is that we need to consider how it is we define "cruelty" with regard to animals. Animal husbandry can be very efficient, but in order to do so, we have to do things that may appear cruel. It's wonderful to think that we could put all the cows on earth on big green pastures and let them be happy forever, but that will not produce enough food for our needs. Industrialized farming is necessary in order to properly support a large population. As much as I want to support the local farmer, and I do support them often, I recognize that it is infeasible to feed 300 million people on local produce only. The farming is too inefficient and taxes too much land.
Penning animals is not cruel in and of itself. Clipping and banding wings is not cruel in and of itself. Slaughterhouses are not cruel. They do ugly jobs, and that might appear cruel, but it's not. Again, my argument goes down to the very core of what we consider to be "cruel" animal treatment. The extreme cases you see presented in video are the exception, not the norm.